For over a century, people have referred to James Matthew Barrie as the boy who never grew up, citing his small stature (he stood at approximately five feet), his love for games, and his close friendships with children. When he wrote the play Peter Pan in 1904, Barrie infused part of his own childlike mischievousness and whimsy into the boy from Neverland. The character Peter Pan is defined by his obliviousness to the real world; he understands neither the concept of aging nor the fear of death that constantly haunts his archrival, Captain Hook. J. M. Barrie himself, however, experienced more than his fair share of tragedy during his life and grew painfully aware that he could not stay young forever. Unlike Peter, Barrie had to grow up, and he spent much of his life trying to reclaim the type of childhood wonder he wrote about in Peter Pan.
J. M. Barrie was born on May 9, 1860, in the village of Kirriemuir, Scotland, the son of a local weaver, David Barrie, and his wife, Margaret Ogilvy. At the age of six, Barrie experienced his first real tragedy when his brother David died. When his mother went into a deep depression, James took it upon himself to nurse her back to health. In his attempts to bring joy to the
Barrie household, little “Jamie” developed a lifelong passion for storytelling, adventures, and drama. But it was also during his adolescence that Barrie developed his characteristically shy, contemplative personality. The more he grew up, the more he regretted leaving childhood behind: “Grow up & have to give up marbles,” Barrie noted in an early journal, “awful thought.”
Channeling his knack for storytelling, Barrie began his career as a freelance journalist and wrote a series of whimsical tales about Scotland, published as Auld Licht Idylls (1888) and A Window in Thrums (1889). Although Barrie established himself as a writer through his novel The Little Minister (1891), he experienced the majority of his success as a playwright. After forming a partnership and friendship with American producer Charles Frohman, Barrie started seeing his plays staged to great acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1897, Barrie’s stage adaptation of The Little Minister shattered all previous box office records on Broadway. It was also in the theater that Barrie met his wife, the actress Mary Ansell, who had appeared in Barrie’s 1892 play, Walker, London. The couple wed in 1894, but eventually divorced in 1909.
In 1897, on one of his many walks in Kensington Gardens with his giant St. Bernard, Porthos, Barrie met and formed an instant friendship with the Llewelyn Davies boys: George, Jack, Peter, and Michael (and later Nico, who was born in 1903). Barrie grew close with their family, and soon became known as “Uncle Jim.” He spent most of his free time with the Llewelyn Davies boys, telling stories, playing games, and launching off on imaginary safaris and jungle excursions. With them, he fully embraced his childlike sense of wonder, and it wasn’t long before their adventures inspired him to write the defining story of his career.
Barrie dedicated Peter Pan to the Llewelyn Davies boys, telling them that the play was “the spark I got from you.” The Llewelyn Davies family became the rough inspiration for the Darlings, and Sylvia’s brother Gerald even originated the role of Captain Hook. When Peter Pan premiered in 1904, it made Barrie an international icon, and he shared the fruits of his success with the Llewelyn Davies family, bringing them along on vacations and out to his summer retreat, Black Lake Cottage. In 1906 alone, Barrie earned £44,000 (the equivalent of about £4.5 million today) and he became the richest writer of his era. Yet, amid the joy and security of Peter Pan, Barrie once again faced tragedy. In 1907, the Llewelyn Davies’s father, Arthur, succumbed to cancer, as did his wife, Sylvia, three years later. After spending so much time with the Llewelyn Davies boys reclaiming his youth, Barrie now had to step in and become a parent. Although he continued to write, Barrie’s priority for the rest of his life became raising the Llewelyn Davies boys with the help of their nanny, Mary Hodgson, and their grandmother, Emma du Maurier. “I take care of them,” he wrote to a friend in 1911, “and it is my main reason for going on.”
In April of 1929, the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children received a surprise gift: J. M. Barrie had bequeathed to them the rights to Peter Pan. And that December, Barrie began a tradition at Great Ormond Street, arranging for the cast of a London production of Peter Pan to visit the hospital and perform the nursery scene for an audience of bedridden children. For more than eighty years, the royalties from Peter Pan have helped ensure that thousands of children can experience a happy and healthy childhood, while serving as a constant reminder of Barrie’s dedication to young people. Barrie spent his whole life caught between his responsibilities as an adult and the expansive world of his imagination. With the help of the Llewelyn Davies boys, and their gift of inspiration, he was able to find a place for both.
Christian Ronald is a second-year dramaturgy student at the A.R.T./Moscow Art Theater School Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.
